128 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



irregularly or casually as far west and south as Wyoming 

 (Cheyenne), Colorado (Fort Collins), and Louisiana (Lake 

 Catherine). 



Spring migration. — Early dates of arrival : Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 March 25; Ontario, Ottawa, May 4; Alaska, St. Michael, May 16, 

 and Bering Straits, May 8. Late dates of departure : South Carolina, 

 Bulls Bay, May 7; Virginia, Cobb Island, May 19; New York, 

 Shelter Island, June 5; Massachusetts, Woods Hole, June 10; 

 Alaska, Admiralty Island, June 10. 



Fall migration. — Early dates of arrival: Ontario, Ottawa, Sep- 

 tember 1; Massachusetts, September 8; Minnesota, Heron Lake, 

 October 5 ; Colorado, Denver, October 2. Main flight passes Massa- 

 chusetts in October. Late date of departure: Alaska, St. Michael, 

 October 15. 



Egg dates. — Arctic Canada : Five records, June 10 to 21. Alaska : 

 Four records, June 2 to August 3. Labrador: Two records, June 

 10 and 17. 



MELANITTA FUSCA (Linnaeus) 

 VELVET SCOTER 



HABITS 



This is strictly an Old World species which owes its somewhat 

 questionable place on the American list to the fact that it has 

 been recorded as a straggler in Greenland. I have never been able 

 to understand why the birds of Greenland should be included in our 

 North American fauna, while those of Cuba and the Bahamas, which 

 are both geographically and faunally much closer to us, are exclud- 

 ed. Greenland both geographically and faunally is but a little 

 nearer North America than Europe; it is intermediate. If we 

 exclude cosmopolitan species, common to both hemispheres, about 

 three-fifths of the breeding birds of Greenland are also North Ameri- 

 can and about tAvo-fifths are also European. 



As the velvet scoter is practically unknown, as an American bird, 

 I can not do better than quote its life history from one of the best of 

 the European writers, an eminent authority on ducks, Mr. John G. 

 Millais (1913) as follows: 



Nesting. — Velvet scoters arrive on the lakes of Norway and Sweden about 

 the end of April, in fact, as soon as the ice breaks up, and even earlier on the 

 lake swamps of Lithuania, Avhich seems to be about the southern limit of 

 nesting birds. The male and female are much devoted to one another and 

 keep close together during the early part of the nesting season. It has often 

 been noticed that if one of the pair is shot the other will fall to the water 

 and dive or stay close to its fallen mate. 



They seem to prefer inland lakes and small ponds on which to breed. CoUett 

 has found them breeding in large numbers in the hill lakes of Gudbrandsda, 

 Valders, Osterdal, and north to Finmark, and I have myself seen females and 



